How Brady Saved the Tory Party From Portillo

Reading the Times Comment Central blog I was amused to see this quote from Michael Portillo's column in yesterday's Sunday Times.

Graham Brady, the party’s Europe spokesman, produced compelling evidence that on average all pupils in areas that have grammar schools do better than others elsewhere. Even those who fail the selection exam, and therefore go to comprehensive schools instead, do better. He refuted the Tory leadership’s argument that this is because grammar schools are found only in more affluent areas. Pupils in Trafford, where there are grammars, outperform those in Bury, where there are none, even though the cities are socially similar. Children “in leafy Oxfordshire”, wrote Brady (a dig at Cameron’s own constituents), “fail to reach the national average”. “Two brains” Willetts had been defeated on the evidence (but not necessarily the politics) by Brady, who always struck me as one of life’s plodders.

Now to the uninitiated, the 'plodders' insult will be taken at face value as just a cheap shot at Brady. It is, however, deeper than that, for it was Graham Brady who did the Conservative Party a great service and single-handedly prevented Michael Portillo from becoming its leader. It's clear that Portillo hasn't forgotten.

The story is that on the eve of the second ballot in the 2001 leadership contest Brady, who had been intending to cast his vote for Portillo, stopped Portillo in the corridor and sought reassurance that Portillo would not introduce all-women shortlists. Portillo failed to give him the assurance so Brady cast his vote for Iain Duncan Smith (I think). Portillo failed by a single vote to get into the membership ballot, which he would probably have won. And the rest, as they say, is history...

UPDATE: A reader kindly points out that Portillo did actually mention this in the next sentence in his article, but didn't give the reason...

Incidentally, Brady’s courageous defence of grammar schools, contributing
to Cameron’s limited U-turn, is at least his second decisive impact on the
history of the Conservative party. In the final hours of the 2001 leadership
campaign I failed to convince Brady to support me. I then lost by one vote to
Iain Duncan Smith.

Osborne: Tories Will Prevent New Grammar Schools From Opening

I was under the mistaken illusion that the grammar school issue had been put to bed and that the party leadership wanted to close down the debatre. The Press Association has just disabused me of that notion...

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne risked stoking the bitter education row further
today by indicating that a Tory government would actively prevent new grammar
schools being opened. Mr Osborne insisted that countries in the "mainstream" of thinking on education - such as America - would not allow selective schools to appear. Pressed by a Conservative activist from Buckinghamshire on whether the party would permit them to open new grammars which had local support, Mr Osborne said: "We don't believe in schools choosing pupils. We believe in pupils choosing schools. "That is where the mainstream of the education debate is all around the world. You go to the United States, you go to other countries in Europe, that's what they are talking about. They wouldn't allow schools to emerge and take funding that had academic selection as a criterion for entry. That is the mainstream education debate in the rest of the world and we're suggesting that Britain and the Conservative party joins that mainstream debate. His comments were immediately attacked by former shadow Europe minister Graham Brady, who resigned yesterday in protest at the policy. Mr Brady - the first front-bencher to quit under David Cameron's leadership - said the Conservative position of keeping the 164 existing grammar schools but ruling out creating any more was "illogical". "This question highlights the illogicality of supporting popular selective systems but preventing them from expanding when parents want them to," the MP for Altrincham and West Sale said. "If population is growing in a selective Local Education Authority area, whether it's Buckinghamshire or Trafford, surely new grammar schools should be available.

Unless they have completely changed their secondary schooling system Germany operates an entirely academically based selection procedure to decide which pupils should go to a Gymnasium (Grammar School), Realschule or Hauptschule.

What on earth was George Osborne thinking of by giving this answer? I thought Conservatives believed in the freedom of parents to start new schools. We criticise Labour for having a £2 million barrier to entry, and yet we are seriously suggesting that we should prevent people opening schools in a format which has a fantastic record of academic excellence and promoting social mobility.